First off, ya’ll Stan Lee is dead. Like Dead, like Thanos snapped away his life with the Infinity Gauntlet dead. Usually I don’t give a damn when a celebrity dies, but this shit, this shit right here nigga blew my mind. Imagine getting off work, checking your phone and seeing that an old white man you never met but who had a hand in some of the geeky intellectual properties is dead. Nigga. I had a chance to meet him at Heroes Con 2012 but the line to meet him was tooooo fucking long and I had to meet my college friends in Greensboro for a bday party that day. Plus real shit I didn’t have 90 dollars to spare. Le sigh.

Second. Winter is coming and it feels like institutional racism and the harshest oppression. There is a legit lament and heart felt yearning for it to be 90 degrees and me being unemployed like I was for four months this year as I wake up before the sun and drive through frigid temperatures.Oh god it fucking hurts. Blargh it all.

I wanted to do this issue earlier this month, but work makes me so tired that I don’t want to type anything significant lately. Kinda sad.

Anyway.

So at this point I got the witch concept knocked out the park and had two more concepts I wanted to bring to life. A masquerade theme. I legit don’t know where this came from, part of it was probably because of the internet. That darn internet and its random elements that I want to incorporate into an amalgamated theme. The initial idea hit me around May 2017 and shortly after the model hunt began.

MAN fuck this model hunt. That shit is the worse. So there was a girl I was following on IG, who I decided to message initially and she was like I’m interested. I was legit excited like damn you replied? damn you said yes? word?

But then I never heard from her again. Of course.

People would reply on Craigslist, honestly none of them were what I wanted at all. I was scrolling on my timeline again on IG and decided to ask this other girl I follow after I saw she did some modeling photos. Honestly what I liked about her was her colorful hair. Thats it, her face was ok. Nothing special. She had a basic white becky face but she was colorful.

Spoiler Alert; I told you these issues will be filled with shade, salt and sarcasm.

She was down for the idea. At some point I asked what color boa would she prefer to wear during the shoot and she told me blue. So next check I brought the boa and had an arts and crafts night,. I had some pink feathers I brought summer 2016 and tied into the boa. The masquerade mask I had from my birthday party in 2015, I applied gems and feathers to it as well.

Ya’ll, when I say I never heard from this pale face basic becky bitch again.I never heard from her again in my mother fucking life.

Jano, Maybe she never got the messages.

Nah, that bitch left me on read. I hope herpes eat her heart muscles while Paramore plays in the background as she grasps for air while she scratches her chest ferociously. Cunt.

*deep breath*

After I wrote this bitch off mentally, I remembered I had asked one of my friends to model for me summer 2016, and she said yea. I decided to see if she was still down, she was. WOOT. Yay for people you become friends with during your art journey. Back in 2011, I saw an ad in Creative Loafing about a sketch group that met at Showmars and I started going. She was a waitress and we became friends. Origin story over.

I told her about the idea, the location and what I had prop wise. The only thing we really had to decide was the date. Since I was unemployed at the time that wasn’t an issue for me. Another factor was the fucking rain, summer rain was legit forecasted every…..fucking….day.

And sometimes it wouldn’t even fucking rain. THE FUCK!!!

We picked a Sunday and it was magical. Well kinda. Two of my friends had a party the night before and I didn’t get drunk, its just that I slept in a weird position in their chair. So I really didn’t sleep, but at least I didn’t drive intoxicated so that’s something. Right?

But Nigga I was in pain the next day. She drove from Monroe to help me out. Nigga, Monroe, NC. And bitches here couldn’t even answer a message. She changed and we went to NODA. The goal was to go early because it was supposed to be hot as fuck that day. So to avoid super slave heat we went before noon, so it was only semi slave heat. She told me she never really modeled before, but for someone who never really modeled before she did a really good job. More so since I couldn’t full annunciate my ideas from lack of sleep and she filled in the blanks instantly so YAAAAAAASSS to that. Some shots I couldn’t get because I overestimated my lens. But overall I got most of the shots I wanted.

To see the images from that day with my friend with a pretty face and colorful hair click. here.

Anyway thats it for now. Next Issue will be the last issue of the year and filled with oh so much shade you would think that Unicron and Galactus is hovering the planet. Google it if you didn’t get the reference. Who would have thought searching for a mermaid would be so much fucking trouble.

Passing out now, 5am comes early. FUCK. I just want to not pick cotton for the rest of my life. There is a unique solace in being unemployed and it being 90 degrees.